October was another less than stellar month for my self-employed aspirations. I started traveling for my company, which limited my time to work on my projects. I’ve also been super busy at work when I haven’t been traveling. For the past few months I was able to work on a few projects, but I haven been unable to do that this month. I will detail my “progress” below and outline my plans for November. I have regained some of my motivation and promise to do significantly better next month.

Marketing a new sports drink online

During October I accomplished nothing on this project. I originally wanted to write 10 ezine articles for article marketing, but I don’t want to do this until I know the email address to send orders to. I would find it highly embarrassing to have orders and not be able to fulfill them.

I will put this project on hold until we acquire that email address. Once the email address is acquired I will begin my article marketing campaign. Additionally, I discovered a wordpress plugin that makes it easy to set up an internet store. I want to learn more about this free plugin and implement it if it will make managing my store easier. Here are my goals for this project for November:

• Complete 10 keyword rich ezine articles pointing to the site (as soon as we get the email address)
• Research the wordpress plugin and implement it if beneficial

Writing ebooks for academic subject tests

Most of my progress in September was done while I was at work, and this month left no time to do anything at work besides work. Unfortunately I have accomplished nothing on this project. It is not the highest priority, but I expect to make a little progress on this project each month. I will do better next month. My current action plan:

1. Finish setting up website
2. Develop outlines for ebooks
3. Begin creating content as blog posts
4. Develop tutoring credentials page
5. Develop contact page

Affiliate marketing campaigns

The lack of progress on this project is what bothers me the most. I’ve made the most money in 2009 with affiliate marketing, which is why I should be putting the most time into this project. I did not spend any time on this project in October. On a positive note, I did make another sale from a One Week Marketing campaign I set up previously. This passive income is the exact reason why I have to put more time into this project. My November goal (and I will accomplish it this time):

• Complete a One Week Marketing campaign for 10 different products

Ebook about taking ideas to products

My Dad expressed some interest in starting up this project again. As far as I’m concerned I can’t do any further work until my Dad completes the outline. I will try to push him to accomplish that soon. So far I have already done some keyword research and decided on a website name for the sales page. I also developed an outline based on some minimal research, as well as a slogan for the product.

Monetize Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

So far my current monetization efforts come from content ads from Microsoft, affiliate marketing (Lending Club, TradeKing, etc.) and text ads. For November I want to do some research and develop a plan to drive traffic to my site. I want to identify five keywords that I want to rank highly for. Ideally these keywords will have little competition and a high search volume, as well as have products that I can promote for profit.

Create a fantasy sports membership site

No Updates

I have yet to do anymore on this site. I have a domain name reserved. I don’t know if I will be able to pursue this project much further until I have time to consistently blog about baseball and football. If I’m not consistently blogging with this site I will not be successful. I am targeting the beginning of fantasy baseball 2010 as my starting point. Until then I will be trying to develop the website so that all I have to do when 2010 baseball rolls around is write articles.

Income for October

• Personal Finance Start-Up blog
  • August – $104.85
  • September – $10.93
  • October – $12.98
• Affiliate Marketing Campaigns
  • August – $21.57
  • September – $0
  • October – $29.41
• Total
  • August – $126.42
  • September – $10.93
  • October – $42.39
  • 2009 – $179.74

October was a complete waste with regards to my self-employed projects. November will be better. My motivation has returned. I also have a ton of personal and vacation days left that will be used in either November or December since they don’t carry over into 2010. When I use them will depend on when our product launch occurs and the work pace slows down.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• Quicken Online Review
• Goals Update for End of August 2009
• Credit Scores from Credit Karma are Deflated
• Earn Free Money For Searching The Internet Using Swagbucks
• Goals Update for End of March 2009

• Dot Net Development: An Integral Part of Web Application Development
• No Cost Software For Viral Traffic Generating On Steroids
• Blogging for Money Guide
• How to Get Blog Readers
• Removing Creative Commons License

October was a very interesting month. I began traveling some for work and while I haven’t been traveling, I’ve been swamped at the office. I’m definitely not complaining about being busy at work because it makes the days go by so much faster, but it leaves less time for me to work on my goals. I wasn’t able to move my non-retirement assets into my retirement accounts, but it will be accomplished within the next week or two. n to the update towards my goals for 2009.

Personal Finance Goals

• Fully fund 2008 Individual 401k ($8,207.00/$8,207.00) – Completed in March.
  
• Fully fund 2008 Roth IRA ($5,000/$5,000) – Completed in April.
• Fully fund 2009 Individual 401k ($2,583.62/$5,264.00) -Previously I decided to keep my emergency fund at $10,000 because of my increased mortgage payment. I had a surplus of cash above the emergency fund level to put towards my retirement funds for 2009, but I made a few major purchases in October, which will be paid for in November. After paying for these purchases, I’ll be lucky to be at $10,000 for my emergency fund. When I sell my Target stock, I will fund my Roth IRA first and then put whatever is leftover in this account. The reason for this is I don’t know exactly how much I will be able to invest into this account. At the end of the year I will calculate the final value. My Individual 401k account goal for 2009 may increase every month as I realize more self-employed income.
• Fully fund 2009 Roth IRA ($0/$5,000) – At the end of November I will have fully funded this account with funds from my Target stock. I will not incur a lot of capital gains taxes because the stock price today is not much higher than the value of the stock when it was gifted to me. Also, since it will be the first year I deduct mortgage interest and property taxes, I should be fine.

Alternative Income Goals

• Turn blogging into a source of income – In October, I earned $2.48 from Microsoft Pubcenter, $10.50 from LinkWorth and $00 from Commission Junction. My total in October was $12.98. I have to work harder to make my income from this blog more consistent. So far I have earned a total of $269.03 through affiliate marketing and text ads, which is already enough to cover the $35 for my first year of hosting and the domain name. My overall goal is $565, which also covers my new laptop.
• Increase monthly page views and subscribers – My traffic has definitely plateaued, if not decreased, since I started working harder on my self-employed income. To combat this I will set a goal of writing 5 articles that will rank highly in the search engines and point towards my site. This month I will also develop a plan for improving the traffic. I want to develop at least 5 keywords that I think I can rank highly for that will drive good personal finance traffic. My monthly page views decreased from 856 to 734. I hosted a carnival for the first time during October and unfortunately did not see the spike in traffic that I was expecting.
• Replace tutoring income through a company with my own personal clients – If tutoring opportunities come my way I will not turn them down. For now I will focus my efforts on developing ebooks for specific subject tests to provide references for when I do start tutoring. For now this is a dead goal unfortunately.

General Goals

• Travel to two cities I’ve never been to – Unfortunately I will have to rely on my work travel to fulfill this goal. In the past month I traveled to Madison, Indianapolis and Tampa. I should be traveling through the rest of the year. I’m also holding out hope that I will make it to Nebraska to visit my cousin.
• Get in shape – I’ve been maintaining my weight while trying to pick up running again. It’s become too cold to bike, which leaves running and swimming. I will do some swimming, but what I really want to do is get my running going again, pain free. I decided to go see a physical therapist for my plethora of injuries, which will cost a pretty penny, but if I am running with no pain in the near future it will be worth it. Unfortunately I don’t think I will reach my weight goal, but if I can continue running it won’t be long into 2010 before I hit my goal.

Only two months left and I’m striving to meet as many goals as possible. Pretty soon I will have to plan my goals for 2010. Hopefully I do a better job than this year as at least one of my goals is dead due to a switch in priorities. How are you all doing on your goals for 2009?

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• Goals Update for End of April 2009
• Increased 2009 401k Contribution Limits
• Goals Update for End of August 2009
• Financial Goals Update as of October 1, 2008
• Book Review: The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke

• Is Converting a Traditional IRA to a Roth a Brilliant or Stupid Idea Right Now?
• How my 2008 goals are going?
• College Financial Aid
• Is a Middle Class Tax Increase on the Way?
• Editorial: Which Presidential Candidate Would Put the Most Money Back in Your Wallet?

Time continues to fly and October was a very interesting month. I haven’t posted as much as I wanted to because I’ve been traveling for work, which has been fun, tiring and time consuming. My net worth increased marginally and was largely driven by decreasing my liabilities. My 15-year mortgage is already paying dividends. I finally invested some fresh funds into my retirement funds, although I hope to do so much more in November.

Cash

In October I had my first mortgage payment after refinancing and it really shows in my mortgage liability. I also transferred everything above $10,000 at the end of September into my solo 401k, which is why my cash asset decreased this month. The goal is to have over $10,000 in cash assets at the end of every month. Normally I would roll over the extra amount ($338.71) into my retirement funds, but I made a couple major purchases in October that will be paid for in November. I bought a shelving unit and blinds, both of which improve the appearance of my condo significantly, as well as add some awesome functionality. I can now watch TV between 5 and 7 pm. I will be very happy if I still have over $10,000 for my emergency fund.

Retirement

My retirement funds increased because of the added funds, however, the stock market dropped for the first time in three months. During the month of November I hope to sell my Target stock (non-retirement asset) and put the money into my retirement funds. The idea is to convert non-tax sheltered assets into tax sheltered assets.

Non-Retirement

My non-retirement account increased as Target stock increased, while the overall stock market decreased. My non-retirement accounts consist of my Target stock through Schwab (for only a little longer), US Growth mutual fund through Vanguard, Sharebuilder account and Lending Club account. I don’t foresee any major contributions to my non-retirement accounts. I would like to start adding $25 into my Lending Club account every month, I might start doing this in November.

Liabilities

My car payment decreased by the standard amount and my mortgage liability decreased for the first time under my new refinanced mortgage. Adding $850 to the equity in my condo feels great. It takes the sting out of making such a large mortgage payment. I’m anxious to automate my mortgage payments again. It really is a burden to have to remember to make this payment on time every month.

Net Worth

My net worth increased by 0.9%. I’ve increased my net worth in many ways since I started tracking it. I suppose now it was time for my liabilities to do the heavy lifting. Next month will be interesting as I have to pay off two large purchases, plus I should have a rather large expense check coming in from all of my traveling. The nice part about traveling for work is getting all of your meals paid for. I should continue traveling through the end of the year, which should help me save some money.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• Financial Goals Update as of September 1, 2008
• Goals Update for End of August 2009
• End of January 2009 Financial Status
• Financial Goals Update as of October 1, 2008
• End of September 2009 Financial Status

• Are ETFs a Good Way to Create Secondary Streams of Income?
• Buying and Selling Stocks 101
• New Loan Funded — Finance for an ESTABLISHED Business — $25,000 at 24% — B Credit — DTI 1392557%
• Biweekly Mortgage Payments Not Worth The Fee
• Pros And Cons Of Investing In Target-Date Retirement Funds.

Ever since I refinanced into a 15-year fixed mortgage, I wanted to start tracking my expenses. My new mortgage will save me a lot of money in the long run, but it comes with a higher monthly payment. I decided to begin tracking my expenses to make sure I wasn’t over spending and still had enough free money to meet my financial goals.

A lot of people use budgets, which requires a good deal of planning. I dont’ want to spend that much time, but I do want to track my spending. I’m going to tally up all of my expenses every month except unique purchases like furniture or airfare, etc. The goal is to get an idea as to how much free money I have spend on furniture, airfare, savings and generally any other wants I have.

My expenses for September are as follows:

• Home (68.9%/52.9%) – consists of my mortgage payment, association fees (water, trash removal, heat, gas, etc), electricity, cable/internet and condo insurance. There isn’t really too much I can do to reduce these expenses. I just have to remember that a lot of it is going towards principal on my condo.
• Car (16.1%/12.3%) – consists of my car payment, auto insurance and gas. I have less than a year remaining of car payments. When I complete my car payments this category will drop by more than half. I’d also like to change my car insurance and drop that payment.
• Food (11.4%/8.8%) – consists of groceries and going out to lunch during work. I’m not looking to reduce this category, but it will be interesting to see how much it fluctuates.
• Luxuries (0.7%/0.6%) – consists of my netflix and zune subscriptions. I enjoy movies and tv shows both streaming and through the mail to cancel my netflix subscription. I’ve actually been thinking about upgrading to the two at a time plan.
• Phone (2.8%/2.2%) – consists of my cell phone. Self-explanatory, although it also acts as my buzzer for my condo. If I didn’t have a cell phone I’d have to get a land line.
• Free Money – I’m relieved to see that I have almost $1,000 to spend how I wish after all of my expenses are taken out. This amounts to 23% of my income, which is much more than I thought I had available. Now I have to increase my income and decrease my monthly expenses.

It’s interesting to note that if you remove my car payment and mortgage payment I would only have barely over $1,000 in expenses. If only I could pay those both off, I could nearly retire.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• The Process of Purchasing a New Construction Condo
• New Chapter in my Mortgage Refinance Journey: The Home Affordable Refinance
• The Conclusion To My Mortgage Refinancing Journey
• Personal Finance, Alternative Income And General Goals For 2009
• Organizing My Personal Finances

• Think interest-only mortgages are bad?
• Not paying off 30-year mortgage a good deal?
• A joint planning session
• Reviewing my Necessary Expenses
• How To Keep Your Money Federally Insured After the $100,000 FDIC Limit

Welcome to the Carnival of Twenty Something Finances – MLB Playoffs Edition. This is my first time hosting a carnival and I’ve decided to throw some of my own personal flair into it by using the MLB Playoffs as my theme. Even though my favorite team (Braves) didn’t make the playoffs, I can still root for my second favorite team (whoever is playing the Yankees).

To parallel the MLB Playoffs I’ll pick 8 articles for the division series, 4 articles for the championship series, 2 articles for the World Series and 1 article for the champion. Enjoy.

Division Series

Silicon Valley Blogger presents myFICO Promotional Code and Review. There is nothing more important to a strong personal finance foundation than a good credit score. Silicon Valley Blogger provides you with a number of ways to monitor your FICO score.

The Smarter Wallet presents an Online Business Guide. For any of you young entrepreneurs, this online business guide provides the structure to start you own online business.

OneMint presents Retirement Planning Calculator: Some More Thoughts. It is never too early to begin planning for your retirement. In fact, retirement planning works best the earlier you start.

Get Rich Slowly presents Money is More About Mind Than it is About Math. J.D. discusses the psychology of money, which is super important to understand before you can quit compulsive spending.

Debt Kid presents How to Make Your Hobby Work For You. Do you have any hobbies that can earn some extra money on the side? It’s a great way to start building up that retirement fund at a young age.

Accredited Online Degrees presents Top 20 Personal Expenses You Can Cut This Year To Save $1,000. There are two ways to free up money for retirement saving, making more money or cutting back on expenses. Cutting back expenses is usually the easiest way.

Darwin’s Finance presents Verizon FIOS is Way More Expensive Than You Think. When comparing services always match them up so the quality is equivalent. Compare apples to apples.

Bill Eater presents How to Determine the Best Debt Elimination Strategy. Unfortunately, many young adults find themselves in debt. A good debt elimination strategy is a must.

Championship Series

Money Ning presents Lifestyle Inflation Is About More Than You. Lifestyle inflation is something that every young adult should be aware of. Preventing lifestyle inflation is a great way to make your money go further.

My Wealth Builder presents Why Stocks Still Make Sense To Me. Historically stocks have always been the best long term investment. Learn from this recession and remember that the market will always bounce back.

The Dough Roller presents a List of No Penalty CD Rates. If you’re a young investor it would be a wise decision to familiarize yourself with CDs. I used a CD to invest my down payment money to safely earn a guaranteed rate.

Gather Little By Little presents Do You Ever Fast? Fasting is usually tied to religion, but Gather Little By Little recommends you start thinking about a few personal finance fasts.

Christian Personal Finance presents the Basics of Stock Market Investing: 3 Traps to Avoid. It would be wonderful if we knew when the stock market had hit a peak or a valley. Since we can’t do that pay close attention to Christian Personal Finance’s 3 traps to avoid.

TipGuy presents Long Term Investing – Don’t Create Your Missed Opportunity. The earlier you start long term investing the larger your retirement fund will grow. TipGuy lets you know exactly what Long Term Investing is, Buffet Style.

Champion

PT Money presents Is Your Emergency Fund Big Enough? Emergency funds should be one of the first things you think about when getting started in personal finances. PT Money has everything you need to know about emergency funds.

Other Good Articles For Twenty Somethings

How I Save Money presents How Much Do You Make? It’s always a good motivator to learn how much other people make at a certain age.

Bargaineering presents What Constitutes Debt Validation? Understanding debt validation is another topic that might be useful for the twenty somethings in debt.

Thanks to everyone who submitted an article.Submit your blog article to the next edition of twenty something finances using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• Goals Update for End of September 2009
• Surviving the Economic Downturn With a Long-Term Outlook
• Links
• New Vanguard Individual 401k For Self-Employed Retirement Savings
• IRA Contribution Rules and Limits for 2008

• Best of Money Carnival #12: Keeping It Random
• The perpetual money machine
• Review of the Richest Man in Babylon
• Finance Fiesta No. 3: The Spanish Money Proverbs Edition
• EverFi Teaches Young People About Money Through Online Games.

With some of my favorite TV shows starting in September, I’ve been less focused than I would like. I did make some progress on my projects, but I’d really like to start seeing my income increase. During October I will focus more on short-term money making projects like my sports drink and one week marketing campaigns, while still sprinkling in some work on my academic subject tests.

Marketing a new sports drink online

During September I was able to finish the website completely. I added the legal page that acts as a privacy policy, security statement and FDA disclaimer. I scrapped the articles section of the site. I thought writing articles pointing to my site was more important than writing articles on my site. I may come back and write articles later, but for now I will focus all of my effort on article marketing.

We have yet to make a sale through our web site, which is sort of good as we’re still waiting for the contact information for the drop shipper. Our contact for the drop shipper is very unreliable at returning calls. Other than securing the contact information, the only remaining task is to write articles pointing towards the site using long-tail keywords. Since writing articles is all that is left to work on for this project, it makes more sense to list a goal rather than an action plan. So here’s my goal for this project for October:

• Complete 10 keyword rich ezine articles pointing to the site

Writing ebooks for academic subject tests

I made some great progress during September on this project. I decided on a website name. I started setting up the website. I completed the hardest part of the set up, which was finding a way to show specific blog posts on different pages that correspond to each subject. I wanted to have one page act as my blog where every post I write shows up, but I wanted a different page for each subject (ie Chemistry, Calculus, etc) to sort through the posts and display every post for that subject. I found a very creative and unique solution. There is still some set up work to do, but the hard coding is completed. My current action plan:

1. Finish setting up website
2. Develop outlines for ebooks
3. Begin creating content as blog posts
4. Develop tutoring credentials page
5. Develop contact page

Affiliate marketing campaigns

I still haven’t finished the campaign for my second idea from two months ago. I also didn’t have any sales from my current One Week Marketing campaign. I have really settled into a holding pattern with using the One Week Marketing technique with Keyword Elite, which is bad considering it’s currently my best method of earning income. Similar to the sports drink project, I’m going to make a goal for the month of October rather than list an action plan. My October goal:

• Complete a One Week Marketing campaign for 10 different products

Ebook about taking ideas to products

This project is in a holding pattern until the sport drink is up and running. I did some keyword research and decided on a website name for the sales page. I also developed an outline based on some minimal research, as well as a slogan for the product. I am waiting for my Dad to create an outline, which probably won’t happen until the sport drink is up and running.

Monetize Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

I haven’t done anything additional for this project during September. So far my current monetization efforts come from content ads from Microsoft, affiliate marketing (Lending Club, TradeKing, etc.) and text ads. I have to start driving more traffic to this site if I want to earn more money. The following is my action plan to drive more traffic:

1. Submit posts to carnivals
2. Comment on other personal finance and passive income blogs
3. Target keywords with article marketing
4. Host a carnival or two

Create a fantasy sports membership site

I have yet to do anymore on this site. I have a domain name reserved. I don’t know if I will be able to pursue this project much further until I have time to consistently blog about baseball and football. If I’m not consistently blogging with this site I will not be successful. I am targeting the beginning of fantasy baseball 2010 as my starting point. Until then I will be trying to develop the website so that all I have to do when 2010 baseball rolls around is write articles.

Income for August

• Personal Finance Start-Up blog
  • August – $104.85
  • September – $10.93
• Affiliate Marketing Campaigns
  • August – $21.57
  • September – $0
• Total
  • August – $126.42
  • September – $10.93
  • 2009 – $137.35

It was great to achieve the first milestone in August, but September was a real step back. I don’t know if making money online is ever going to be considered consistent, so all I can do is focus on developing the income potential on my projects. Now that I’ve set specific goals for a few of my projects, I hope to increase my income once again in October.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• Returning From Break And My Trip To CVS
• My Favorite Articles of the Week
• Book Review: Problogger - Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income
• Goals Update for End of June 2009
• My Favorite Articles of the Week

• Choosing the best keywords for your marketing article
• Online Information Marketing-How Online Information Marketing Helps In Generating Income
• Top 50 MLM Blogs
• Fastest Way To Earn Affiliate Incomes...
• Internet Marketing overview

September was a good month to both myself and my Bears, however, my Braves push for the playoffs fell just short. I was able to make progress on a few more of my goals this month. I’ve decided to push some of my non-retirement investments into retirement accounts to help reach my goals. I hope to have this accomplished by the end of October. On to the update towards my goals for 2009.

Personal Finance Goals

• Fully fund 2008 Individual 401k ($8,207.00/$8,207.00) – Completed in March.
  
• Fully fund 2008 Roth IRA ($5,000/$5,000) – Completed in April.
• Fully fund 2009 Individual 401k ($2,583.62/$5,264.00) – I didn’t have a mortgage payment for September, because it was covered as a part of my closing costs on my mortgage refinance. Not having a payment allowed me to push my cash a good chunk above my emergency fund level of $10,000. I rolled everything above $10,000 into this account, which amounted to $2,583.62. The reason why I’m keeping my emergency fund at $10,000 is because my mortgage is now a 15-year mortgage, which comes with a hefty monthly payment. I decided to fund my Individual 401k before my Roth IRA as I have to pay taxes on that money if it isn’t invested in the account. My Individual 401k account goal for 2009 may increase every month as I realize more self-employed income.
• Fully fund 2009 Roth IRA ($0/$5,000) – Funding this account is secondary to funding the Individual 401k. I’ve decided I will most likely move my Target funds over into my retirement accounts to help accomplish my goals for 2009. Also, this will put more of my money to work tax sheltered, which is a good thing in the long run. I believe the long-term capital tax gains I will incur will be offset by the amount of mortgage interest I paid this year (since it is the first year I had mortgage interest).

Alternative Income Goals

• Turn blogging into a source of income – Once again I spent most of my time this month working on my other self-employed income projects, which left little room for improvement. In September, I earned $0.43 from Microsoft Pubcenter, $10.50 from LinkWorth and $00 from Commission Junction. My total in September was $10.93. I have to work harder to make my income from this blog more consistent. So far I have earned a total of $256.05 through affiliate marketing and text ads, which is already enough to cover the $35 for my first year of hosting and the domain name. My overall goal is $565, which also covers my new laptop.
• Increase monthly page views and subscribers – After switching my focus towards producing self-employed income, I’ve settled into a posting routine of twice a week. This allows me to work on my other projects while maintaining my interest in this blog. My monthly page views decreased from 1,115 to 856. The lack of an increase in my monthly visitors means I have to start submitting to carnivals, commenting on other blogs and writing guest posts, in addition to article marketing to get my blog to ranking higher for specific keywords. Once I do some of that I will increase my traffic and increase my earnings for the previous goal. I am set up to host the carnival of twenty something finances next Monday. It is my first time hosting a carnival and I look forward to a little increased traffic next month.
• Replace tutoring income through a company with my own personal clients – The school year is starting up, but in past experiences, the tutoring generally doesn’t get into full swing until a few months into the school year. I haven’t decided if I will really try to tutor on my own or focus my time on self-employed ventures.

General Goals

• Travel to two cities I’ve never been to – I don’t know where my two trips are going to come in. I think one of the trips will be a drive down to Lincoln, Nebraska. I know what you’re thinking, why would you go to Lincoln, but my cousin lives there now and he promised I could go to a Nebraska football game. It would be my first division one major conference football game. I’m super excited about that.
• Get in shape – I found a great book series this month and it severely cut into my working out productivity. I’ve finished reading the available books and I highly recommend Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle beginning with Book One, Eragon. During my reading hiatus I managed to maintain my weight 8 pounds above my target weight. I also managed to fall on my bike and had to take a few days off to buy a new seat. I started running again and set up a meeting to see a physical therapist who should help me keep running without injuries. Running combined with biking and swimming should put me in good shape to reach my target weight.

Three quarters of the year is over and it’s time for the stretch run. I still plan on trying to achieve as many of my goals as possible and many of them are still possible. October will be the crucial month that will determine whether or not I will meet my goals or not. Good luck to all of you in your stretch run to meet your 2009 goals.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

• Goals Update for End of February 2009
• Financial Goals Update As Of November 1, 2008
• The Final Chapter Of My Mortgage Refinancing Journey, Hopefully
• Goals Update for End of October 2009
• End of July 2009 Financial Status

• Guest Post Wednesday: MossySF on International Bonds
• The Proper Rate Of Savings
• What is Debt Leverage?
• Disputing 30 Year Versus 40 Year Mortgages.
• Fixed Term Investment Characteristics

Another month has passed and I’m happy to say I’m back to increasing my net worth again. The increase in my net worth was cash driven, mostly because I didn’t have to make a mortgage payment and I finally received my escrow funds from Wells Fargo. Also, it didn’t hurt that the market went up for the third month in a row.

Cash

After refinancing my mortgage last month, I was fortunate enough to be able to build up my cash asset to my emergency fund level of $10,000. Part of my closing costs consisted of paying for the interest for all of September, which meant I didn’t have a single mortgage payment to make. I suppose this is a glimpse into what it would be like if I owned my condo straight up. Wouldn’t that be nice! I’m hoping to be able to keep $10,000 in cash as my emergency fund, but I don’t know if that will be possible if I want to accomplish all of my 2009 goals. I opened a high interest rewards checking account this month that will earn me 4.15% APR on my cash, so I will be getting a decent return on this asset. I also received a check from Wells Fargo for my escrow account due to the refinance. When you refinance your mortgage your existing escrow gets closed out and a brand new escrow gets set up. The check went straight into my new high interest rewards checking account.

Retirement

The stock market continued to climb for the third month in a row. All of the increases were due to the stock market, as I have yet to add any 2009 contributions. I plan on putting $2,583.62 into my solo 401k account in the next few days. By the end of 2009 I hope to have contributed significantly more to accomplish my goals.

Non-Retirement

My non-retirement accounts consist of my Target stock through Schwab, US Growth mutual fund through Vanguard, Sharebuilder account and Lending Club account. I don’t foresee any major contributions to my non-retirement accounts, in fact I may cash out my Target stock. I have yet to decide what to do with my Target stock, but I may transfer it into my Roth IRA account to provide tax sheltering. I might have to do this if I want to finish furnishing my condo and accomplish my goals.

Liabilities

My car payment decreased by the standard amount, but my mortgage liability did not decrease at all. I didn’t have to make a payment on my mortgage this month. The first payment is due in October, which has me paying around $850 towards principal (check out my new Amortization Schedule).

Net Worth

My net worth increased by 3.7%. It feels really good to get my net worth going back in the positive direction.  I will now be focusing my efforts on investing in my retirement accounts and making more money through my self-employed projects to drive my net worth even higher. I’m also planning on tracking my expenses and income to get a better understanding of what my monthly balance sheet looks like. Hopefully this will allow me to grow my income and decrease my expenses.

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

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If you’ve ever secured a mortgage or refinanced a mortgage, you very well might have gone through a mortgage transfer of servicing rights. Unless you secured your mortgage from a major bank, your lender would have sold your mortgage to a large bank for servicing. Smaller lenders and banks don’t have enough capital to service mortgages until completion, so they sell them usually prior to closing. Within the past year I’ve secured my first mortgage, as well as, refinanced my first mortgage. In both instances the mortgage transfer of servicing rights were slightly different.

When I recently refinanced my mortgage, I found a lender who was able to offer me a great rate with low closing costs because they did everything in house. I’m not completely sure what that means, but it has something to do with performing all of the tasks (securing the loan, underwriting, etc) all within a very small amount of time. Because they didn’t have to lock anything down for an extended period of time they could reduce rates and closing costs.

At closing some of the documents I signed pertained to the sale or transfer of servicing rights. It stated that my lender had sold my mortgage to Chase effective October 1st, which coincided with my first mortgage payment. I was given contact information for both my lender and Chase.

I don’t know why they have to make all of the documents that you sign when you close on a mortgage so difficult to understand, but I wasn’t quite sure where my first payment should be sent. I called Chase and they said they didn’t have my information yet. I called my lender and two days later they have yet to return my call.

In the end, I decided to send my check to Chase as I’m sure my lender has washed their hands of my loan already. I just don’t understand why Chase wouldn’t have my information yet. It would make sense to me to have an account set up and to have contacted me to set up online payments if I wanted to do so.

When I secured my first mortgage, it was with a different lender and they sold it to Wells Fargo. As much as I don’t like how Wells Fargo treated my attempts to refinance my mortgage directly through them, they handled the transfer of my servicing much more efficiently. I had a letter in the mail a week or two after closing that directed me how to set up my online account. I then called and set up my online payments and talked to a real live person who told me everything was set up for the next payment and I didn’t have to send a check.

I suppose those are the two ways you might have to deal with a mortgage transfer of servicing rights. Either they contact you before your first payment is due, or they contact you after the official transfer date. I’m hoping Chase contacts me soon. I’m one of those people who likes to have all bills set up to be paid automatically so I don’t accidentally forget a payment.

Has anybody else had interesting stories regarding a mortgage sale of servicing rights?

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

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As I mentioned previously, I decided to go with a Devon Bank Rewards Checking account over the NorStates Bank version, mostly because of the location. I finally opened my Rewards Checking Account late last week after blogging about it for months. I’m looking forward to the benefits of a 4.15% APR. A few quick notes about Devon Bank that were unavailable online. I do not have to fulfill the requirements to earn the 4.15% APR for the first two months because they know it’s a transitional period. Also, they have no minimum balance fees and the minimum deposit when opening your account is $100.

Quick note for those of you opening accounts in the near future: bring multiple forms of ID. They asked me for two forms of ID. I gave my driver’s license as my first form. The second form had to have my current address, which rules out credit cards, etc. Fortunately, the Wells Fargo escrow check had my current address on the check. I recommend bringing a utility bill statement with your address and name when opening an account.

I received the balance of my escrow account from Wells Fargo last week and used that as my first deposit to open the account. Now I have to change my direct deposit from my current bank account to my rewards checking account. Obviously I will keep the majority of my cash in the rewards checking account to take advantage of the high interest rate. The biggest advantage of the rewards checking account is I can keep my emergency fund in an account that has a high interest rate, yet still have access to it whenever I want via check.

New Bank Rotation

I have a few smaller bank accounts with minimal balances that I will disregard for this exercise. I do find that it’s a good idea to have a plan with your bank accounts with regards to where the money flows in and out. I have three banks in my rotation, all of which are checking accounts: Harris, National City and Devon Bank.

Devon Bank

Devon Bank will receive 90% of my direct deposit, which will fulfill one of my requirements to get the higher APR. From this account I will pay my Insurance, Credit Cards, Utilities, Assessments and Mortgage.

Harris Bank

I plan on using my Harris account to input my self-employed income (my business checking account is with Harris) and personal checks. I am keeping this account open for convenience as it is only two blocks away from my condo. I will finish paying off my car with this account as I have less than a year left and it would be a pain to switch payment accounts at this point. Money will come out of this account for my Solo 401k. Anything left over will get shifted over to the Devon Bank account.

National City

I like having a separate account where part of my direct deposit goes. I feel like I get free money every time I look in this account. I suppose it’s my way of automating my savings. I’ll be putting roughly 10% of my direct deposit into this account. This money will go towards my retirement savings.

Is anybody else’s bank rotation as convoluted as mine?

Post from: Personal Finance Start-Up Blog

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